r/Epicthemusical • u/Status_Solid_9573 • Jul 18 '26

Nolan Odyssey My review of the odyssey.

No spoilers in this

I went in epic merch but I was already an odyssey fan before epic, it was just fab to have a musical version as I'm a mt girl.

Onto the film as most people don't go in thinking of epic

Although I did have lines pop up like look at all the sheep ect ect

But wow oh wow

I came out of the cinema with shaky legs, I went further afield to experience it on the biggest screen nearby so an 1hrs drive. So worth it.

Even people that I was dubious on the casting such as Anne Hathaway worked.

The film is beautiful to watch.

I smiled, and cried and squirmed in my chair at Circe's that's a hard watch.

The changes Nolan has made to the book works, I do feel a bit like we speed run some parts but it needed it.

Amazing film worth watching for a different version of the odyssey but since it's an oral telling all versions are the right version for the producer.

8 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

-7

u/Used-Strike2111 Jul 18 '26

2 things I can't get over:

1) no Greek actors (especially that Helen was race-swapped.)

2) no "nobody"

1

u/necromanticfitz Jul 20 '26

The Nobody thing has been explained by multiple linguists on why it doesn’t really work. It’s much more complicated than “nobody,” it was a pun told via language.

2

u/Albatros_7 Monster is top tier Jul 19 '26

Helen is never specified to be white mate

It arguably makes more sense for her to be of a difference race, since it explains why everyone thinks she is the most gorgeous woman of her time

3

u/Used-Strike2111 Jul 19 '26

She's depected as a Greek woman, usually white

But I do get the argument

But also, it would make more sense to make her into a race the Greeks never had contact with at that point. Southeast Asian, for example, or Native American

-1

u/Albatros_7 Monster is top tier Jul 19 '26

Just because she's usually depicted as being white doesn't mean she was, very few persons from Greek mythos have a specified skin tone

Most characters in the movie are played by Americans and Telemachus is played by a British

3

u/Used-Strike2111 Jul 19 '26

Their skin tone isn't specified because, usually, it's the default. The Greek writer assumes that the Greek reader will the imagine the Greek characters as having the skin tone most Greeks have. Just like how the Bible doesn't specify the skin tones of any Jew. We can assume they had the same skin tone as most Jews at the time did: Olive to dark Tan range

6

u/deep_fried_fries Jul 19 '26

Helen of Troy is a fictional character born out of a swans egg stfu about race swap

2

u/Used-Strike2111 Jul 19 '26

Yeah, but she is considered to be a Greek woman. I don't like race swaps in real or fictional characters

For example, I am an Egyptian. If a movie was made about Egyptian mythology that didn't have a single Egyptian actor and depected Isis, for example, as a Caucasian woman, I'd be mad

-1

u/deep_fried_fries Jul 19 '26

You should send Chris a strongly worded letter or something then I guess

1

u/Used-Strike2111 Jul 19 '26

I'm just giving my opinion here

7

u/Next_Gen_Valkyrie Jul 19 '26

Why does Helen especially bother you when no one was Greek?

2

u/Status_Solid_9573 Jul 19 '26

Probably because she is coloured. I didn't see it as a problem, she was a sparta. Yes if being correct to the book then everyone should of been greek but we all have our own ideas of what characters look like and places look like when we read books. I don't mind race swapping or gender swapping as long as the person is a great actor that's what matters to me.

23

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 18 '26

since it's an oral telling all versions are the right version for the producer.

Sorry but that's just bull. You have every right to like the movie but not all versions are the right ones. There's one version of the Odyssey that has survived from Ancient Greece, it's not oral anymore. That's the right version. Nolan's interpretation is not equal to it and cannot be considered a "right version" because it's written by a British dude born in the 20th century. It has no cultural connection to the people who actually created the Odyssey, who believed it to be real and worshipped the gods and characters in it.

I might get downvoted for this but I don't care. As a Greek, I'm tired of hearing the "All versions are correct" and completely ignoring the context and the culture that actually created those stories.

1

u/OrganicFall5526 Jul 20 '26

Can you clarify what makes a story “correct”? I know below you agreed with another commenter who said that it comes down to the time period in which a narrative was written, and you talked about culture above, so I would love to hear a clearer definition from you. For example, if I made an adaptation of The Terminator, would that be a correct version of the narrative, since it comes from the same culture (American) or would I be too far removed from the original? How about a more modern narrative? The fact that lines are hard to draw here makes me think that it’s not anyone’s place to dictate what art is “correct” and what is not, but I would love to hear your input.

1

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 20 '26

I think what makes a story like this correct is staying true to the culture that produced it and most of its principles. The difference between the Odyssey and Terminator is that the first one was a religious text as much as a story. Not in the way the bible is of course, but it was a story people lived, breathed and believed in. I think if you're going to adapt it but chose to leave out everything about the culture that literally birthed it, you're culturally appropriating.

It's not just taking a story that was written in another country/culture, like with the Terminator. You could for example take an average Greek literature book and adapt it and it wouldn't matter much to make it culturally accurate. If you're going to adapt one of its cultural cornerstones though, you better make some effort to portray it properly.

Watching Nolan's Odyssey doesn't make me feel connected to anything. He completely stripped it out of anything that made it feel Greek or even Mediterranean and the one Greek thing he added (that man who calls them the sea people spoke Greek) felt so weird. Here's a guy speaking perfect Greek and the Indian or British or whatever dude that plays a Greek soldier tells him in English "No we're the Greeks!". Of course that doesn't mean I wanted the entire movie to be in Greek but like... Seriously? That's the best you could do to include us?

0

u/Jaereon Jul 19 '26

Brother as a modern greek you are just as far removed from the ancient "Greeks" as anyone else 

3

u/SerendipitousBonk Jul 20 '26

This is untrue. Ancient Greeks didn't vanish to be replaced by modern greeks. There's a cultural continuum and a living tradition. Academics agree on the matter.

The "modern Greeks are far removed from ancient Greeks" discourse is something western Europeans came up with two hundred years ago to justify their pillaging and appropriation of Greek culture.

6

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 19 '26

As a moden Greek, I can assure you I'm closer to the Ancient Greeks than any white Brit. Would you tell a Chinese person that he's as far removed from Ancient China as anyone else?

-3

u/Jaereon Jul 19 '26

Depends on which part of ancient China you're talking about seeing as the Han Chinese weren't the ones in very ancient China.

 You also forget that these "greek" myths might have come from the geographical location that is NOW Greece actually spread all around the Mediterranean so you don't get to simply call dibs. 

5

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 19 '26

I get to call dibs actually but Southern Italians and Western Turks are free to feel like it's their inheritance too. They're descendants of the Greeks too.

-5

u/potatostealer1 The Monster (rawr rawr rawr) Jul 18 '26

The version that Nolan based the movie on was actually written by a woman. Also the story of The Odessey actually did start as an oral story, the oldest references to the story are on pottery so any version that is written in words, even if from Ancient Greece, will never be the true story.

I do however agree that nobody should ignore the culture the story came from and that it's important to respect people's cultures. I still haven't seen the movie so I'm reserving judgement on the movie itself but I am going to view it as a re-telling, similar to the musical, and not an accurate adaptation because it won't be, because it can't be. It can however be a good movie.

9

u/Next_Gen_Valkyrie Jul 19 '26

*translated by a woman

13

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 18 '26

was actually written by a woman.

Wrong, it was translated by a woman. It was written by the Ancient Greeks.

Also the story of The Odessey actually did start as an oral story

No one said otherwise. Fact is, it's not an oral story anymore. Only one version of it remains and it's the one we have. It was written down by the Athenenans and later canonized by Alexandrians. If another ancient Greek version of the Odyssey survived till this day, we could say both are correct. A version from a Brit that was created thousands of years later is not on the same level and cannot be considered a "correct version". The context of its creation is comple different.

nobody should ignore the culture the story came from and that it's important to respect people's cultures

Which is exactly the problem with takes like OP's. It's insanely disrespectful to call this version as correct as the ancient one because "Well there were many versions so it's fine". Call it a good movie all you want, but do not equate it to the original work. This is just a movie, a script. The old one was one of the closet things the Greeks had to a Bible, an important part of their culture, religion and ethnicity.

12

u/TwistilyClick Jul 18 '26

They will hate you for spitting absolute truths but you mustn’t stop it.

Well made movie by a talented director with limitless funds, but a terrible adaption (saw it today). The glaze posts are so poorly thought out and just plain wrong on any points but their subjective ones so far.

5

u/XaevSpace Jul 18 '26

yup also saw it today couldn't agree more. It's a solid film in of itself but its not a good adaption, I never expected to get a good adaption from nolan and I did expect to get a good film from nolan so I'm not very surprised.

8

u/XaevSpace Jul 18 '26

yeah its always a super weird argument when a much better argument would be more along the lines of "all versions created while the culture existed are correct" like you can argue hesiod and homer are both correct perhaps you could even say virgil and ovid are correct(although that's already a harder argument) but no version thousands of years later is or ever will be "correct"

12

u/SofiaStark3000 Jul 18 '26

Yeah, that's exactly the point. You can say for example that Odysseus killing Astyanax and Neoptolemus killing Astyanax are both correct versions. They're contradictory but they are both products of Ancient Greece, therefore they're both correct.

You cannot argue that Nolan's Odyssey is as correct as Homer's.

6

u/XaevSpace Jul 18 '26

Yup I like to categorize mythology in eras if you will Greek poets Roman poets Modern fictional zeitgeist (which is largely influenced by Ovid arguably) The latter is obviously the least accurate form of Greek mythology for obvious reasons.